TED2012
Nathan Wolfe: What's left to explore?
Nathan Wolfe: Hvad er der tilbage at udforske?
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Vi har været på månen, vi har kortlagt kontinenterne, vi har endda været på det dybeste sted i oceanerne. Hvad er der tilbage for den næste generation at udforske? Biolog og opdagelsesrejsende Nathan Wolfe forslår dette svar: Næsten alting . Og vi kan starte, siger han, med verdenen af det næsten ufattelige småt.
Nathan Wolfe - Virus hunter
Armed with blood samples, high-tech tools and a small army of fieldworkers, Nathan Wolfe hopes to re-invent pandemic control -- and reveal hidden secrets of the planet's dominant lifeform: the virus. Full bio
Armed with blood samples, high-tech tools and a small army of fieldworkers, Nathan Wolfe hopes to re-invent pandemic control -- and reveal hidden secrets of the planet's dominant lifeform: the virus. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:16
Recently I visited Beloit, Wisconsin.
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Fornylig besøgte jeg Beloit, Wisconsin
00:19
And I was there to honor a great 20th century explorer,
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Jeg var der for at ære en stor opdagelsesrejsende fra det 20'ende århundrede.
00:22
Roy Chapman Andrews.
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Roy Chapman Andrews.
00:24
During his time at the American Museum of Natural History,
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I hans tid, ledte the American Museum of Natural History,
00:27
Andrews led a range of expeditions to uncharted regions,
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en lang række ekspeditioner til ukortlagte regioner,
00:31
like here in the Gobi Desert.
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som her i Gobi ørkenen.
00:33
He was quite a figure.
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Han var lidt af en type.
00:34
He was later, it's said, the basis of the Indiana Jones character.
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Blev, påstås det, forbilledet for Indiana Jones figuren.
00:38
And when I was in Beloit, Wisconsin,
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Og mens jeg var i Beloit, Wisconsin,
00:40
I gave a public lecture to a group of middle school students.
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gav jeg en offentlig forelæsning til en gruppe skoleelever.
00:44
And I'm here to tell you,
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Og jeg fortæller jeg,
00:46
if there's anything more intimidating than talking here at TED,
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hvis der er noget mere skræmmende en at tale her på TED,
00:49
it'll be trying to hold the attention
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vil det være at forsøge at holde opmærksomheden
00:50
of a group of a thousand 12-year-olds for a 45-minute lecture.
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hos en gruppe på tusinde 12-årige gennem en 45 minutter optræden.
00:54
Don't try that one.
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Prøv det ikke.
00:56
At the end of the lecture they asked a number of questions,
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Efter min forelæsning stillede de en række spørgsmål,
01:00
but there was one that's really stuck with me since then.
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men der var et som blev hængende i hovedet siden.
01:03
There was a young girl who stood up,
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Der var en ung pige som rejste sig
01:05
and she asked the question:
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og stillede et spørgsmål:
01:06
"Where should we explore?"
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"Hvor henne skal vi tage på opdagelsesrejse?"
01:08
I think there's a sense that many of us have
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Jeg tror at det er en følelse mange af os har
01:11
that the great age of exploration on Earth is over,
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at tiderne for de store opdagelser på jorden er forbi,
01:13
that for the next generation
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at den næste generation
01:15
they're going to have to go to outer space or the deepest oceans
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er nødt til at tage til det ydre rum eller ned i de dybeste oceaner
01:18
in order to find something significant to explore.
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for at finde noget betydningsfuldt at udforske.
01:21
But is that really the case?
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Men er det virkeligt rigtigt?
01:23
Is there really nowhere significant for us to explore
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Er der virkeligt ikke noget betydningsfuldt tilbage at udforske
01:26
left here on Earth?
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her på Jorden?
01:28
It sort of made me think back
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Det fik mig til at tænke tilbage
01:29
to one of my favorite explorers in the history of biology.
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på en af mine favoritudforskere i biologiens historie
01:32
This is an explorer of the unseen world, Martinus Beijerinck.
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Dette er udforskeren af den usete verden, Martinus Beijerinck.
01:35
So Beijerinck set out to discover the cause
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Beijerick stod ud for at opdage årsagen
01:38
of tobacco mosaic disease.
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til tobaksmosaiksygen.
01:40
What he did is he took the infected juice from tobacco plants
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Hvad han gjorde var at tage inficeret saft fra tobaksplanter
01:44
and he would filter it through smaller and smaller filters.
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og filtrere den gennem finere og finere filtre.
01:47
And he reached the point
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Han nåede til et punkt
01:48
where he felt that there must be something out there
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hvor han følte at det måtte være noget
01:51
that was smaller than the smallest forms of life that were ever known --
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som var mindre end den mindste form for liv som nogensinde var kendt --
01:55
bacteria, at the time.
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på den tid bakterier.
01:57
He came up with a name for his mystery agent.
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Han opfandt et navn for denne mystisk årsag.
02:00
He called it the virus --
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han kaldte det for virus --
02:02
Latin for "poison."
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latinsk for gift.
02:04
And in uncovering viruses,
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Og ved at afdække vira,
02:07
Beijerinck really opened this entirely new world for us.
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åbnede Beijerick virkeligt en dør til en helt ny verden for os.
02:11
We now know that viruses make up the majority
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Vi ved at vira udgår hovedparten af
02:13
of the genetic information on our planet,
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den genetiske information på vores planet,
02:15
more than the genetic information
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mere end den genetiske information
02:17
of all other forms of life combined.
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af alle andre former for liv tilsammen.
02:18
And obviously there's been tremendous practical applications
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Og det har indlysende haft en enorm praktisk anvendelighed
02:22
associated with this world --
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at kende denne verden.
02:23
things like the eradication of smallpox,
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Ting som udryddelsen af kopper,
02:25
the advent of a vaccine against cervical cancer,
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fremkomsten af vaccine mod livmoderhalskræft,
02:29
which we now know is mostly caused by human papillomavirus.
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som vi nu ved skyldes human papillomavirus.
02:32
And Beijerinck's discovery,
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Beijerincks opdagelse
02:34
this was not something that occurred 500 years ago.
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var ikke noget som skete for 500 år siden.
02:37
It was a little over 100 years ago
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Det var lidt over 100 år siden
02:40
that Beijerinck discovered viruses.
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at Beijerinck opdagede vira.
02:42
So basically we had automobiles,
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Så grundlæggende havde vi automobiler
02:44
but we were unaware of the forms of life
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men vi var uopmærksomme på den form for liv
02:46
that make up most of the genetic information on our planet.
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der indeholder den største mængde genetisk information her på vores planet.
02:49
We now have these amazing tools
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Vi har nu disse utrolige redskaber
02:51
to allow us to explore the unseen world --
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som muliggør udforskningen af usete verden --
02:54
things like deep sequencing,
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ting som dyb sekventering,
02:56
which allow us to do much more than just skim the surface
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som tillader os at gøre mere end bare skimme overfladen
02:59
and look at individual genomes from a particular species,
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og kigge på de individuelle genomer fra udvalgte arter,
03:02
but to look at entire metagenomes,
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men at kigge på hele metagenomer,
03:05
the communities of teeming microorganisms in, on and around us
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samfund af vrimlende mikroorganismer, i, på og omkring os
03:09
and to document all of the genetic information in these species.
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og dokumentere alt den genetiske information af disse arter.
03:12
We can apply these techniques
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Vi kan anvende disse tekniker
03:14
to things from soil to skin and everything in between.
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på ting fra jord og hud og alle ting derimellem.
03:18
In my organization we now do this on a regular basis
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I min organisation er vi begyndt på regelmæssigt
03:21
to identify the causes of outbreaks
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at identificere årsagerne til de sygdomsudbrud
03:24
that are unclear exactly what causes them.
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hvor det er uklart hvad der forårsager dem.
03:27
And just to give you a sense of how this works,
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Og for at give jer et indtryk af hvordan det er,
03:29
imagine that we took a nasal swab from every single one of you.
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forstil jer at vi tager en vatpind i næsen på jer alle sammen.
03:32
And this is something we commonly do
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og det er noget vi normalt gør
03:34
to look for respiratory viruses like influenza.
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for at kigge efter åndedrætsvirus som influenza.
03:37
The first thing we would see
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Den første ting vi vil se er
03:39
is a tremendous amount of genetic information.
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en kolossal mængde af genetisk information.
03:42
And if we started looking into that genetic information,
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Og hvis vi starter med at kigge på denne genetiske information,
03:44
we'd see a number of usual suspects out there --
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vil vi se et antal af de sædvanlige mistænkte --
03:46
of course, a lot of human genetic information,
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selvfølgeligt, en masse human genetisk information,
03:48
but also bacterial and viral information,
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men også bakteriel og viral information,
03:51
mostly from things that are completely harmless within your nose.
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mest fra ting som er fuldstændigt harmløse i vores næse.
03:54
But we'd also see something very, very surprising.
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Men vi ser også noget meget, meget overraskende.
03:57
As we started to look at this information,
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Da vi startede med at kigge på denne information,
03:59
we would see that about 20 percent of the genetic information in your nose
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fandt vi at omkring 20 procent af den genetiske information i vores næser
04:04
doesn't match anything that we've ever seen before --
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ikke kommer fra noget vi nogensinde har set før --
04:07
no plant, animal, fungus, virus or bacteria.
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ingen plante, dyr, svamp, virus eller bakterie.
04:10
Basically we have no clue what this is.
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Grundlæggende har vi ingen ide om hvad det er.
04:13
And for the small group of us who actually study this kind of data,
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Og i den lille gruppe af os som faktisk studere denne form for data
04:17
a few of us have actually begun to call this information
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er nogle få af os er faktisk begyndt at kalde denne information
04:21
biological dark matter.
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for biologisk mørkt stof.
04:23
We know it's not anything that we've seen before;
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Vi ved at det er noget vi aldrig har set før;
04:26
it's sort of the equivalent of an uncharted continent
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det er en slags pedant til det ukortlagte kontinent
04:29
right within our own genetic information.
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lige inde i vores egen krop.
04:32
And there's a lot of it.
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og der er masser af det.
04:34
If you think 20 percent of genetic information in your nose is a lot
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Hvis du syntes at 20 procent genetisk information i din næse er meget
04:37
of biological dark matter,
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biologisk mørkt stof,
04:39
if we looked at your gut,
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hvis vi kigger i dine tarme
04:40
up to 40 or 50 percent of that information is biological dark matter.
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op til 40 til 50 procent af den information er biologisk mørkt stof.
04:44
And even in the relatively sterile blood,
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Og selv i det relativt sterile blod,
04:46
around one to two percent of this information is dark matter --
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omkring en til to procent af den genetiske information er mørkt stof --
04:49
can't be classified, can't be typed or matched with anything we've seen before.
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kan ikke blive klassificeret, typificeret eller matched med noget vi har set før.
04:54
At first we thought that perhaps this was artifact.
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Til at starte med troede vi at det var en fejl.
04:57
These deep sequencing tools are relatively new.
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Disse dybe sekventeringsværktøjer er forholdsvis nye.
05:00
But as they become more and more accurate,
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Men efterhånden som de bliver mere og mere nøjagtige,
05:02
we've determined that this information is a form of life,
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er vi blevet overbevidst om at denne information er en form for liv,
05:06
or at least some of it is a form of life.
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eller i det mindste noget af det er en form for liv.
05:08
And while the hypotheses for explaining the existence of biological dark matter
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Og mens denne hypotese for forklaring af eksistensen af biologisk mørk stof
05:13
are really only in their infancy,
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virkeligt er i sin barndom,
05:15
there's a very, very exciting possibility that exists:
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findes der en meget, meget ophidsende mulighed:
05:18
that buried in this life, in this genetic information,
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At begravet i dette liv, i disse genetiske informationer
05:22
are signatures of as of yet unidentified life.
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er vidnesbyrd om en endnu ikke identificeret form for liv.
05:26
That as we explore these strings of A's, T's, C's and G's,
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At mens vi udforsker disse strenge af A'er, T'er, C'er og G'er ,
05:30
we may uncover a completely new class of life
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kan vi afdække en fuldstændig ny klasse af liv
05:33
that, like Beijerinck, will fundamentally change
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som, ligesom Beijerinck, fuldstændigt vil ændre
05:36
the way that we think about the nature of biology.
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måden vi i dag forestiller os biologiens natur.
05:38
That perhaps will allow us to identify the cause of a cancer that afflicts us
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Muligvis vil det tillade os at identificere årsagerne til kræft som plager os
05:42
or identify the source of an outbreak that we aren't familiar with
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eller identificere årsagen til sygdomsudbrud som vi ikke er bekendt med
05:46
or perhaps create a new tool in molecular biology.
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eller måske skabe et nyt værktøj i molekylærbiologi.
05:49
I'm pleased to announce that,
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Jeg stolt over at kunne fortælle at
05:51
along with colleagues at Stanford and Caltech and UCSF,
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sammen med kollegaer fra Standford, Caltech og UCSF,
05:56
we're currently starting an initiative
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er vi i gang med at starte et initiativ
05:57
to explore biological dark matter for the existence of new forms of life.
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til at udforske biologisk mørk stof for eksistens af en ny form for liv.
06:01
A little over a hundred years ago,
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Lidt over hundrede år siden var
06:03
people were unaware of viruses,
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folk uvidende om virus,
06:06
the forms of life that make up most of the genetic information on our planet.
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den form for liv som indeholder mest af den genetiske information på vores planet.
06:10
A hundred years from now, people may marvel
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om hundrede år fra nu af vil folk måske undres over
06:13
that we were perhaps completely unaware of a new class of life
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at vi måske er fuldstændigt uvidende om en ny klasse af liv
06:16
that literally was right under our noses.
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som findes bogstaveligt talt lige under vores næser.
06:20
It's true, we may have charted all the continents on the planet
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Det er sandt at vi har kortlagt alle kontinenterne på planeten
06:23
and we may have discovered all the mammals that are out there,
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og vi har opdaget alle pattedyr derude,
06:26
but that doesn't mean that there's nothing left to explore on Earth.
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men det betyder ikke at der ikke er mere tilbage at udforske på Jorden.
06:30
Beijerinck and his kind
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Beijerinck og hans slags
06:32
provide an important lesson for the next generation of explorers --
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gav os en vigtig lærdom for den næste generation af udforskere --
06:35
people like that young girl from Beloit, Wisconsin.
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folk som den unge pige fra Beloit, Wisconsin.
06:39
And I think if we phrase that lesson, it's something like this:
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Og jeg tror at hvis vi ska lave et slogan ud af denne lærdom, vil det lyde som:
06:42
Don't assume that what we currently think is out there is the full story.
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Forvent ikke at hvad vi nu tror er den fulde historie.
06:47
Go after the dark matter in whatever field you choose to explore.
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Gå efter det mørke stof i et hvilket som helst område du vælger at udforske.
06:52
There are unknowns all around us
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Der er ubekendte omkring os
06:54
and they're just waiting to be discovered.
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og de venter kun på at blive opdaget.
06:56
Thank you.
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Mange tak.
06:58
(Applause)
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(Bifald)
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Nathan Wolfe - Virus hunterArmed with blood samples, high-tech tools and a small army of fieldworkers, Nathan Wolfe hopes to re-invent pandemic control -- and reveal hidden secrets of the planet's dominant lifeform: the virus.
Why you should listen
Using genetic sequencing, needle-haystack research, and dogged persistence (crucial to getting spoilage-susceptible samples through the jungle and to the lab), Nathan Wolfe has proven what was science-fiction conjecture only a few decades ago -- not only do viruses jump from animals to humans, but they do so all the time. Along the way Wolfe has discovered several new viruses, and is poised to discover many more.
Wolfe's research has turned the field of epidemiology on its head, and attracted interest from philanthropists at Google.org and the Skoll foundation. Better still, the research opens the door to preventing epidemics before they happen, sidelining them via early-warning systems and alleviating the poverty from which easy transmission emerges.
Nathan Wolfe | Speaker | TED.com